Flea (musician)

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Flea

Michael Peter Balzary, better known by his nickname Flea (born on October 16, 1962, in Burwood, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia), is the bassist for the alternative rock/funk rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, as well as a frequent session musician and occasional actor.

Biography

Early life

Michael (as Flea was then still known) led a relatively conventional family lifestyle in Australia until his father Mick was posted to New York in March 1967 in accordance with his job as a customs officer, taking with him his wife Patricia, daughter Karen and the young Michael. After only four years in the U.S., Michael's mother Patricia met and fell in love with a jazz musician named Walter Urban Jr in 1971, resulting in the divorce of his parents. Michael was again uprooted, this time right across America, as his mother and soon to be stepfather moved with him and his sister to live in Los Angeles in 1972.

Michael developed an enthusiasm in playing music very early, first trying his hand at the drums. However, at the age of nine he took up playing the trumpet and soon proved to be a natural talent. He was so skilled with the instrument, that upon his family's settlement in LA he swiftly earned a place in the Los Angeles Junior Philharmonic Orchestra. Already so proficient at playing the trumpet, watching his stepfather jamming with his bebop jazz band had a profound effect on the eleven-year-old Balzary, and this fueled his new-found love for jazz and leading exponents of the genre, such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Ornette Coleman. Concerning his singular love for the jazz genre at the time, Balzary confessed to VH1's Behind the Music that he originally had no interest in rock and roll, and his ambition was to become a jazz musician like his stepfather. He was still (and remains to this day) an avid trumpeter and jazz fan when he started at Fairfax High School in September 1976, but this academic shift also brought about a fateful meeting that would change his life forever.

Fairfax High School

About a month into his first year at Fairfax, Michael was playfully roughing-up his friend, a fellow tenth-grade student in the quadrangle named Tony Shurr, when he found his target being defended by a fellow student and future bandmate Anthony Kiedis. Despite the initial enmity, both found an affinity for each other and swiftly became best friends, with Michael introducing Kiedis to the world of jazz. Both had somewhat unstable homelives, with Kiedis' drug-dealing party-animal father, and Michael's formerly alcoholic, though often aggressive stepfather. Through Kiedis, Michael also soon became friends with another fellow student and future bandmate Hillel Slovak, whom Kiedis had befriended thanks to Slovak's playing guitar in a band named Anthym. All the while, Michael still grew ever more proficient with his trumpet, taking the place of first trumpet in the Fairfax school orchestra, and impressing Kiedis with the fact that his lip was constantly swollen, as noted in Kiedis's autobiography, Scar Tissue.

Michael's musical focus first became significantly distracted from jazz when Slovak introduced him to the world of rock, through artists such as Led Zeppelin, KISS, Queen and Jimi Hendrix. With his new interest in rock, Michael started being taught to play the bass guitar at the age of 17 by Slovak. This was due to the fact that in concurrence with Anthym guitarist Alan Mishulsky and drummer Jack Irons, Slovak considered the band's existing bassist Todd to be of sub-standard skill, which was in contrast to the raw musical talent of the other band members. One day, Todd walked in to find the band rehearsing with Michael playing bass using his equipment, causing him to take his stuff and walk out. Anthym were left with their official new bassist, who had the technical and musical skill to match his bandmates.

The punk years

During a trip to Mammoth Mountain with his friends Keith Barry and Johnny Karson, Michael B. became known as the Flea, which would essentially become the effective name of the now famous bassist. Playing in Anthym, Flea swiftly proved himself to be as equally naturally talented playing the bass as he was playing the trumpet, and this attracted attention from outside the band. In 1982 he received an offer to become the new bass player in Fear, an aggressive and wild band from the Los Angeles punk scene. In 1983, Flea, Kiedis, Slovak and Irons went on to form Red Hot Chili Peppers together. They got a record deal with EMI in 6 months, and Flea then left Fear to concentrate on the Chili Peppers. At the time he even turned down an offer by his longtime idol John Lydon to join his post-Sex Pistols band Public Image Ltd., because he preferred to stay with his friends in the Peppers.

His bass-slapping technique is unique and was a major influence on other bands even before the Red Hot Chili Peppers broke into the mainstream, which is why, on their breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magik he refused to use the technique in the same way, to avoid it being imitated (As stated personally by Flea in the documentary of Blood Sugar, "Funky Monks"). And his playing was featured on 2005's Momentum, by jazz saxophonist Joshua Redman. He still plays trumpet occasionally, for example, as part of a horn section on the second Jane's Addiction album, on Mike Watt's Ball Hog or Tug Boat? on The Mars Volta's sophomore release Frances The Mute, and with Nirvana on a performance of Smells Like Teen Spirit at Hollywood Rock '93, a music festival in Brazil. Most recently, he joined Incubus on "The Fourth Movement of the Odyssey" for the Halo 2 soundtrack. The songs "Subway To Venus", "Pretty Little Ditty", and "Taste the Pain" on the Chili Peppers album Mother's Milk, "Apache Rose Peacock" on Blood Sugar Sex Magik, and "Tear" on By the Way also feature Flea on trumpet, and lately he has been playing some trumpet during the Peppers live performances. It is known that he plays trumpet in some of the songs on Stadium Arcadium, namely "Torture Me" and "Hump De Bump".

Flea's style is influenced by Bootsy Collins, funk music and by the energy of early punk rock bands such as Black Flag. What makes Flea unique from other bassists is his constant improvisation and speed in songs.

Bass gear

Most of the various basses Flea has used with the Red Hot Chili Peppers include:

  • Alembic Epic: Flea used an Alembic Epic bass comprising a flame maple topped mahogany body and ebony fingerboard to record almost all of the One Hot Minute album, with the exception of the songs "Aeroplane" and "Pea". This guitar can be glimpsed in the second video for the single "My Friends", which shows the band recording the album in The Sound Factory studios.
  • Dani California Video: Flea starts with a double bass in the rockabilly band, before playing a Höfner 500/1 in the British Invasion segment. In the next psychedelic rock segment he uses a sunburst Fender Precision, which precedes the funk homage in which he performs with a transparent Ampeg Dan Armstrong bass. In the glam rock and subsequent punk vignettes, Flea wields red and sunburst Fender Jazz Basses respectively, before performing with a heavily stylised black bass in the goth band, which he expresses his dislike for in the video's "making of" documentary. The final two non-regular bass guitars that Flea performs with in the video are a Gibson Flying V in the hair metal band and a Gibson Thunderbird used when he is the bassist in the grunge band.
  • Fender Jazz Bass: Although he mainly used his signature Modulus Flea Bass to record By The Way, Flea also used Jazz Basses to record certain songs such as "Body Of Water". He used solely Jazz Basses on Stadium Arcadium, with his main bass being the only known example of a 1961 Shell Pink Jazz. This is the rarest of the custom colours, though it has turned off-white over time due to the yellowed lacquer coating over the underlying pink paint, and the instrument now sports a D. Boon sticker, courtesy of Flea. This bass appeared in the "Californication" and "Dani California" videos, and was used on the earlier promotional tour legs for Stadium Arcadium. Flea has used several other Jazz Basses in videos, such as an orange model in parts of the "Can't Stop" video, and a Jaco Pastorius signature sunburst model in the "Tell Me Baby" video.
  • Fender Precision Bass: Used as a live back-up on the Freaky Styley tour and in the early promotional legs for Stadium Arcadium, when Flea primarily used his Shell Pink Jazz Bass.
  • Modulus Flea Bass: There are several notable examples of Flea's use of his signature Flea Bass from Modulus, beginning with a blue flake model featuring a rectangular sticker below the bridge saying; "a flea still drinks the blood of those who wouldn't harm a flea". Flea used this bass to record Californication and subsequently it was his main bass on the Californication tour. He has also used a silver flake model seen in the "Can't Stop" video to play drop-D tuned songs such as "If You Have To Ask", "By The Way" and "Charlie" on all tours since Californication. Perhaps most notable is a custom model nicknamed the "Punk Bass", which is painted like the Dutch national flag and covered in graphics featuring Flea's favourite punk bands, which was his main instrument on the By The Way world tour. As his 1961 Jazz could not cut through the mix on the larger Stadium Arcadium tour shows, Flea re-employed the Flea Bass with a new sunburst model featuring a black pickguard.
  • MusicMan Cutlass I: Flea first used a Cutlass I on tour for The Red Hot Chili Peppers. This bass was originally black, as can be seen around its edges, which were partially untouched from the green and yellow fluorescent paint applied by Flea to the lower and upper halves of the body respectively. Some yellow paint was also applied to the headstock, and the body was covered in pink tape patterns similar to Flea's first StingRay. This bass is visible in this state in Anthony Kiedis's autobiography, where he and Flea are shown live in 1984, before this bass was gradually covered in more and more stickers by its owner. After being used to record and tour Freaky Styley, the bass is visible in said album's single videos "Jungle Man" and "Catholic School Girls Rule", with many stickers all over the body. Kiedis' book also shows a picture of the band backstage in 1985, with the bass evident in this later state.
  • MusicMan Sterling: Briefly visible in the original My Friends video.
  • MusicMan StingRay: Flea's first bass with the Red Hot Chili Peppers was a pre-Ernie Ball string-through-body black StingRay used to record The Red Hot Chili Peppers. This had both sides of the body and the headstock painted green and was covered with pink tape in criss-cross patterns. It should not be confused with Flea's similarly decorated Cutlass I, as this StingRay had a rosewood fretboard and wooden neck - apparent in the video for "True Men Don't Kill Coyotes" - as opposed to the graphite neck of its cousin, the Cutlass I. Flea later brought two black Stingrays into use during The Uplift Mofo Party Plan/Mother's Milk period. One had a maple fretboard and a sticker saying 'crunch' on the upper body horn, which can only be glimpsed in the "Fight Like a Brave" video, yet is later very conspicuous in the "Show Me Your Soul" video and the Psychedelic Sexfunk Live from Heaven recording. The other black StingRay had a rosewood fingerboard and was used live extensively throughout 1990 to 1996. This was the bass with which Flea recorded "Aeroplane" on One Hot Minute, and subsequently performed with in that song's video. Flea's only use of a five-string bass on a recording with the Red Hot Chili Peppers was a black StingRay5 used on Blood Sugar Sex Magik to record "Funky Monks" and "Righteous And The Wicked". This is the bass which Flea plays in the "Under the Bridge" video.
  • Sigma: Acoustic used to record the song "Pea" on One Hot Minute.
  • Spector NS: To record The Uplift Mofo Party Plan, Flea used a black NS with chrome hardware, dot inlays, J-J pickups and stickers of two figures on the instrument's body horns, which he plays his solo with in the "Fight Like a Brave" video. This first NS was used to tour The Uplift Mofo Party Plan in 1987-1988. Flea used a new black NS2 with gold hardware, block inlays and a P-J pickup configuration on all of Mother's Milk, and subsequently wielded it in the music video for the "Knock Me Down" single from that album. This was used in live shows throughout 1989-1991, in alternation with the StingRay.
  • Taylor: Acoustic used to record the song "Road Trippin'" on Californication.
  • Wal Custom Mark II: Flea used this blue bass guitar to record most of Blood Sugar Sex Magik, with the exception of the songs "Funky Monks" and "Righteous And The Wicked". It is seen in the Funky Monks film showing the band recording the aforementioned album, though like the Alembic Epic for the One Hot Minute tour, Flea never used this bass live, preferring the StingRay for such duties. He still owns this bass, though the front of the body is now covered with many different stickers exhibiting the faces of various artists and musicians that Flea admires.

Independent work

Session

In 1982 Flea was the bassist for Fear before choosing to stick with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He played bass on the hit 1989 single Bust a Move by Young MC. He played trumpet on Jane's Addiction's Nothing's Shocking, and filled in for Eric Avery during their reunion tour in 1997, as well as played bass for The Mars Volta on 2003's De-Loused in the Comatorium and trumpet for 2005's Frances the Mute. He also played bass for Alanis Morissette on the acclaimed song 'You Oughta Know', as well as guest appearances on countless albums by other artists. Flea has also played in support of the activist group Axis of Justice.

Acting

Flea made his acting debut in the 1984 cult classic punk drama Suburbia. His filmography also includes My Own Private Idaho, Motorama, Son in Law, The Chase, The Big Lebowski, The Blue Iguana, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Liar's Poker. More notably, Flea played the character "Needles" in Back to the Future Part II and Back to the Future Part III, and provided the voice of the feral boy Donnie in the animated television series and film The Wild Thornberrys.

Personal

Flea married Loesha Zeviar in 1986, and their daughter Clara was born in 1988. Flea and Loesha split up in 1990 but have joint custody of Clara and remain on friendly terms, with Loesha's name remaining tattoed on Flea's chest. In 2005 Flea had a baby girl named Sunny Bebop Balzary with his new fiancee, 30 year old model Frankie Rayder. Red Hot Chili Peppers bandmate John Frusciante is Sunny Bebop's godfather.

Trivia

  • Along with Slash and Ozzy Osbourne, Flea is referenced in the Super Nintendo game Chrono Trigger, where he is portrayed as a very feminine male character referred to as tone-deaf.
  • He has 11 tattoos
  • Following the "Tell Me Baby" music video, Flea wore the same suit from the video while performing the tour shows for Stadium Arcadium.
  • Flea has a blog for NBA.com about his beloved Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
  • The death of Flea's dog Martian during the writing stages of Stadium Arcadium inspired the creation of the song "Death of a Martian" from that album.
  • In 2001 Flea founded his own music school in the Los Angeles district of Silver Lake, named the Silver Lake Conservatory of Music. The school teaches all different music genres and instruments and Flea sometimes teaches students himself.


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